Is Amazon Going To Sell 48,000 Kindles A Month? (AMZN)

How many Kindles are out there? To date we've only heard the vaguest of anecdotes. Now some theoretical numbers: According to Asian tech pub Digitimes, the Taiwanese company that makes the display module for the Kindle and other e-readers is shipping 60,000-80,000 of them monthly and expects that number to hit 120,000 by the second half of the year. (via IndieKindle)

Prime View International, which manufactures the Kindle's 6-inch electrophoretic display (EPD), says 60% of those displays go to Amazon. That means Jeff Bezos is ordering up to 48,000 per month--and the number could approach 72,000 by year's end, if PVI's forecast is accurate.

Amazon (AMZN) said it had resolved its long-running Kindle supply problems in mid-April, so we don't know how many Kindles it was moving prior to that.

But for argument's sake, let's average the 48,000 and 72,000 monthly numbers: 55,000 a month. And let's say that Amazon does indeed sell that many for the remainder of the year. By our count, that means we're looking at least 660,000 Kindles by end of 2008. Not shabby for a $399 gadget not made by Apple.